Chinese Iconographies: A Selection of Works by Chinese Artists from an Esteemed European Collection.

The ensuing group of works by Chinese artists explore the importance of identifying with and reflecting on their cultural heritage through physical objects, motifs and references whilst addressing current socio-political circumstances within China and around the world.

Born in a Shanghai Buddhist monastery, Yan Pei-Ming left China for France in 1980 to join the Dijon Academy of Arts where he has lived and worked ever since. Combining his dual cultural heritage, Yan’s almost exclusively portraiture output, painted wholly in a monochromatic or bi-chromatic palette, traverses the line between Western-inspired compositions and the work of Chinese Zen calligraphers who would use similarly large brushes to circumvent an arbitrated from of expression. Revisiting the wide-ranging subjects of his monumental portraits to near obsession, the artist paints from memory, taking images sourced from newspapers or other clippings. The powerful use of red in Red Buddha condenses the associations with Communist China and Mao’s Little Red Book, and is the strongest colour signifying danger and alert. Yan is one of China’s most accomplished painters and has exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1995 and 2003. His work has been celebrated at solo exhibitions at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, the San Francisco Art Institute and the Musée du Louvre, Paris.